Jean-Bernard Métais

Jean-Bernard Metais’ artistic development has been marked by recurring themes from the 1980s to the present day: the fixed and the random, and the fragility of time. Depending on the specific needs of each project, he explores and experiments with the materials best suited to his project. Stainless steel, bronze, aluminum, glass and wood are all part of his medium, as are sand, wind and light.

“What drives Jean Bernard Métais’ research is the invention of objects with the ability to incorporate energies into their work, enabling us to visualize the incessant metamorphoses of things. For example, in the mirror of an immense hourglass, the reverse side of the plane shows the sand in motion, acting on its shape and, as it is exhausted, carving out rhymes, a kind of counter-form, as if the disintegration of the volume, as it is accomplished, were revealing a pentacle whose geometry would be the spell. The gaze is then held, fascinated by the spectacle of the simultaneous transformations of the sand, which by changing planes liquefies, builds pyramids or writes words according to a necessity carefully calculated by the artist. Of course, without the need for the mind to formulate it, the sand speaks of time, collecting geological events, animal and plant life, of which the arena is merely the repository, before its grains come together once again and, through this concatenation, begin a new cycle that belies the title the artist gives to these imparted times, since each of them precisely decloses the circle of time.”

“What drives Jean Bernard Métais’ research is the invention of objects with the ability to incorporate energies into their work, enabling us to visualize the incessant metamorphoses of things. For example, in the mirror of an immense hourglass, the reverse side of the plane shows the sand in motion, acting on its shape and, as it is exhausted, carving out rhymes, a kind of counter-form, as if the disintegration of the volume, as it is accomplished, were revealing a pentacle whose geometry would be the spell. The gaze is then held, fascinated by the spectacle of the simultaneous transformations of the sand, which by changing planes liquefies, builds pyramids or writes words according to a necessity carefully calculated by the artist. Of course, without the need for the mind to formulate it, the sand speaks of time, collecting geological events, animal and plant life, of which the arena is merely the repository, before its grains come together once again and, through this concatenation, begin a new cycle that belies the title the artist gives to these imparted times, since each of them precisely decloses the circle of time.”

Text by Jean de Loisy (extract from “Les chambres sensorielle de Jean-Bernard Métais”)